Bunin to the Kul’mans, 1925

Ivan Bunin (1870-1953) was the first Russian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, awarded to him “for the strict artistry with which he has carried on the classical Russian traditions in prose writing”. A celebrated prose writer and poet in pre-revolutionary Russia, in 1918 he fled to France where he created most of his masterpieces. Recognised as the émigré master of Russian literature, he was published widely both in Stalin’s USSR and abroad.